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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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    Iraqi Sunnis lay out conditional offer to join unity government

    Rocky
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    Iraqi Sunnis lay out conditional offer to join unity government Empty Iraqi Sunnis lay out conditional offer to join unity government

    Post by Rocky Sat 16 Aug 2014, 4:18 am

    Iraqi Sunnis lay out conditional offer to join unity government



    BY RAHEEM SALMAN AND MICHAEL GEORGY
    BAGHDAD Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:46am EDT

    (Reuters) - Tribal leaders and clerics from Iraq's Sunni heartland said on Friday they would be willing under certain conditions to join a new government that hopes to contain sectarian bloodshed and an offensive by Islamic State militants that threatens Baghdad.

    Members of the Sunni Muslim minority made their offer after Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, threw his weight behind prime minister-designate Haider al-Abadi, a Shi'ite trying to form an inclusive government in a country beset by daily bombings, abductions and executions.

    Abadi faces the daunting task of pacifying the vast western province of Anbar, where Sunni frustrations with the sectarian policies of outgoing Shi'ite premier Nuri al-Maliki have pushed some to join an insurgency led by the Islamic State fighters.

    The tribal leaders and clerics said Sunni representatives in Anbar and other provinces have drawn up a list of demands to be delivered to Abadi through Sunni politicians, their spokesman Taha Mohammed al-Hamdoon told Reuters.

    He called for government troops and Shi'ite militia forces to suspend their attacks in Anbar to allow for talks.

    "It is not possible for any negotiations to be held under barrel bombs and indiscriminate bombing," Hamdoon said in a telephone interview, referring to strikes on Sunni cities. "Let the bombing stop and withdraw and curtail the militias until there is a solution for the wise men in these areas."

    Separately, one of Anbar's most powerful tribal leaders, with thousands of men at his command, said on television he was ready to work with Abadi, if he respected Sunni interests.

    Ali Hatem Suleiman, a leading figure in an earlier alliance with U.S. and Iraqi forces against al Qaeda, said he could consider joining a new campaign against the Islamic State.

    Sistani, spiritual leader of the Shi'ite majority, said earlier that the handover to Abadi offered a rare opportunity to resolve political and security crises.

    Maliki finally stepped down as prime minister under heavy pressure from allies at home and abroad late on Thursday, clearing the way for Abadi who is a party colleague but has a reputation as a less confrontational figure.

    Iraq has been plunged into its worst violence since the peak of a sectarian civil war in 2006-2007, with Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State overrunning large parts of the west and north, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee for their lives and threatening the ethnic Kurds in their autonomous province.

    Sistani told the country's feuding politicians to live up to their "historic responsibility" by cooperating with Abadi as he tries to form a new government and overcome divisions among the Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish communities that deepened under Maliki. Abadi himself, in comments online, urged his countrymen to unite and cautioned that the road ahead would be tough.

    Sistani, a reclusive octogenarian whose authority few Iraqi politicians would dare openly challenge, also had pointed comments for the military, which offered serious no resistance when the Islamic State staged its lightning offensive in June.

    "We stress the necessity that the Iraqi flag is the banner they hoist over their troops and units, and avoid using any pictures or other symbols,” Sistani said, in a call for the armed forces to set aside sectarian differences. Maliki was blamed for blurring lines between the army and Shi'ite militias.

    Maliki ended eight years in power that began under U.S. occupation and endorsed Abadi, a member of his Shi'ite Islamic Dawa party, in a televised late-night speech during which he stood next to his successor, surrounded by other leaders.

    Maliki's critics at home and abroad had accused him of marginalising the Sunni Muslim minority, which dominated Iraq until a U.S.-led invasion deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003. This, they said, had encouraged disaffected Sunnis to back the jihadist fighters who have ordered religious minorities to convert to their radical brand of Islam or die.

    They have threatened to march on the capital.

    The appointment of Abadi, had drawn widespread support within Iraq but also from the United States and regional Shi'ite power Iran - two countries which have been at odds for decades.

    "The regional and international welcome is a rare positive opportunity ... to solve all (Iraq's) problems, especially political and security ones,” Sistani said in comments which were relayed by his spokesman after weekly Friday prayers in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad.

    After its capture of the northern metropolis of Mosul in June, a swift push by the Islamic State to the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan alarmed Baghdad and last week drew the first U.S. air strikes on Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011.

    SINJAR PLIGHT REMAINS DRAMATIC

    In Geneva, the United Nations said around 80,000 people had fled to the relative safety of Dohuk province on the Turkish and Syrian borders, part of the 1.2 million Iraqis who have been displaced inside the country this year.

    Dan McNorton of the UNHCR refugee agency said their plight was severe. "People are exhausted, people are very thirsty, these are searing temperatures," he told a news briefing, adding that children and old people were among those forced to walk for days without food, water or shelter.

    Several thousand remained on the barren tops of the Mount Sinjar range, where members of the Yazidi religious minority fled the militants, who consider them "devil worshippers".

    On Thursday, President Barack Obama said the Islamists' siege of Mount Sinjar had been broken and he did not expect the United States to stage an evacuation or continue humanitarian air drops.

    However, McNorton said help was still needed. "That situation remains very dramatic for those people, regardless of how many people are on the mountain. It is of critical importance to ensure that they get the assistance and support that they need from the international community," he said.

    The Islamic State has also seized large parts of Syria as it tries to build a caliphate across borders drawn by European imperialists a century ago. The leader of the Shi'ite Lebanese group Hezbollah said the Sunni militants could widen their threat to include Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf states, as well as region's varied communities.

    "This danger does not recognise Shi'ites, Sunnis, Muslims, Christians or Druze or Yazidis or Arabs or Kurds. This monster is growing and getting bigger," said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whose group has been helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fight the Sunni Islamist-dominated insurgency.

    EU MEETING

    European Union foreign ministers were holding an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the region's response to major crises including the conflict in Iraq.

    In London, the British government said it would consider "positively" any request for arms from the Kurds to help them battle the militants who have seized much of Iraq,

    The United States has asked European countries to supply arms and ammunition to the Kurdish forces, U.S. and European officials have said.

    Prime Minister David Cameron has so far said Britain's response would be limited to a humanitarian effort, but London has also been transporting to Kurdish forces military supplies, such as ammunition, being provided by other nations.

    "If we were to receive a request then we would consider it positively," a spokeswoman for Cameron said.

    Several European governments, including France, Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, have said they will send arms to the Kurds or are considering doing so.

    Abadi is in the sensitive process of trying to form a new government in a country beset by daily bombings, abductions and executions. He must rein in Shi'ite militias accused of kidnapping and killing Sunnis and persuading the once dominant Sunni minority that they will have a bigger share of power.

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